'Only one winner' - Alan Shearer verdict on Liverpool star for performance against AC Milan star

Alan Shearer has hailed Trent Alexander-Arnold for his performance for Liverpool last night during the win over AC Milan.

The Reds enjoyed a perfect start to their UEFA Champions League campaign thanks to goals from centre-back duo Ibrahim Konate and Virgil van Dijk, while Dominik Szoboszlai added a third in the second half. Arne Slot’s side were good value for their win as the home side faltered under the bright lights.

Despite having plenty of quality on the pitch, Paulo Fonseca’s side failed to impose themselves as they dominated possession, the shot count and recorded a far greater expected goals figure. The likes of Alvaro Morata, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Christian Pulisic (after his early goal) failed to get a hold of the game - and the same goes for Rafael Leao.

The Portuguese attacker is their highest value player and has been linked with big money moves to the Premier League in the past but he struggled to create anything of note on the left wing, as he created just a 0.07 expected goals and 0.02 expected assist totals but he did complete five of his six dribbles including one moment of pure brilliance in the second half. But Shearer, speaking post-match on Amazon Prime, says there was only ‘one winner’ on that side.

“There was only one winner and that was Trent,” He said. “Only when Trent went off did Leao have the ball at any point and went past Joe Gomez but he didn’t do that many times, if any, to Alexander-Arnold. And he didn’t manage to stop him going forward and it was his cross that helped win the free-kick for the opener, which he took so he more than played his part in the win and, yes, he won that battle.”

According to the figures, Shearer wasn’t too accurate with some of his comments. Gomez wasn’t dribbled past after being substituted for Alexander-Arnold, while he was dribbled past three times in his 79 minute performance. He won three tackles and made one interception and won 50% of his ground duels but, as always, the figures don’t always tell the story. Milan had zero big chances and created an expected goal figure of 0.61 compared to Liverpool’s 3.09 and Leao was mostly ineffectual on a very comfortable night for the right-back.